In the prior art, the semiconductor wafer is subjected to many treatments including various film deposition treatments, etching treatments and photolithography. In these treatments, the semiconductor wafer is placed on the wafer holder having a heater in the semiconductor manufacturing device so that while being heated it is subjected to the film deposition treatment and others. For these treatments, various wafer holders have been investigated for those individual treatments.
At the photolithography step of forming a resist film pattern on the wafer, for example, the wafer is rinsed, heated, dried and cooled. A resist liquid is then applied to the wafer surface and is dried. Subsequently, the resist is subjected to an exposure, a development and so on. In this photolithography step, the quality of the coating film is seriously influenced by the temperature at the resist drying time. It is, therefore, important to keep a homogeneous and constant temperature at the treating time. On the other hand, the treating device using a metal heater is hindered by a problem in which multiple particles stick to the semiconductor wafer.
Moreover, those treatments of the semiconductor wafer must be completed within the shortest possible time period so as to achieve maximum throughput improvement. To meet this demand to shorten the wafer treating time period, we have proposed a heater module for the semiconductor manufacturing device (as referred to in Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-163747), in which a block unit can come into and out of abutment against the back of the heater opposed to the wafer carrying face.